The same court had ruled against them previously. If they just wanted to let them off, why didn't they do it then? It seems to me the most reasonable explanatio

The same court had ruled against them previously. If they just wanted to let them off, why didn't they do it then? It seems to me the most reasonable explanation is that they were interpreting the law (IANAL but badly it seems to me in the second case) not ignoring it. That may amount to the same to you but I think there's a huge difference in terms of how to remediate the situation. To me, the answer is to amend the law so that it does what we want rather than just make blanket claims that can't be acted on.